What’s your approach to tea towels? This humble item seems to me to get very little attention in the scheme of things. We may feel strongly about design in our homes but often the tea towel is just a practical thing. We may just pick some up cheaply in a hurry, or find ourselves with a stack of souvenir tea towels bought by kindly friends and family as a reminder of their travels (though I never quite have understood why we need to re-live their trip while washing up).
But actually these ubiquitous pieces of fabric, made in their millions, tell a real story about our homes and even our society. And are worth closer attention.
Take this 1970s Bisto tea towel. It is sending a useful message to ‘housewives’ who maybe are beginning to loose a familiarity with cuts of meat which their pre-war counterparts would have had at the tips of their fingers. At the same time it selling a modern convenience food – instant gravy. This looking back with nostalgia but having to face the realities of the future was quite prevalent in the 1970s.
Or this one, from a well known brand of marmalade, featuring a toy which we consider racist and is banned in today. There’s a serious point of social history contained in this everyday item.
The reason I am thinking about tea towels is that I saw some very jolly embroidered ones in Anthropologie – like this one with a lobster. It’s pretty and fun but, at £28, it seems a bit expensive. I wondered why I would not pay this price for something I use everyday and could cheer up the kitchen on a rainy day like today. Are we far too sensible in our approach to tea towels? In the 18th century they were a high class item belonging to the mistress of the home and not down in the dirt of the kitchen.
A tea towel was a special linen drying cloth used by the mistress of the house to dry her precious and expensive china tea things. Servants were considered too ham-fisted to be trusted with such a delicate job, although housemaids were charged with hand-hemming the woven linen when their main duties were completed.
Maybe we should re-visit our attitude to tea towels. It is thought that Van Gogh painted the above image of Plane trees on one when he was in desperate need of canvas.
This is the sort of thing he would have had handy. They are still available today and monogrammed vintage ones are fairly easy to pick up in a brocante today. So, I suppose, the Van Gogh tea towel makes all others seem cheap. I think I may treat myself to this strawberry reminder of summer.
